Okay, finally. In the AI era, systems thinking is your edge.

To be clear, this is not actually a new edge—it's always been the edge. However, the reality is that AI is making it even easier than it already is to build a product or start a company.

It's also never been easier to produce “noise.” The markets and channels have never been noisier.

So, what does that mean for us?

Well, in our opinion, that the often-prescribed advice of test, learn, and iterate is not enough.

Sure, minimum viable tests and capturing learnings are critical. But while people were able to get away with—sorry—a half-baked process, I do not think that window will be open for much longer.

A simple thought exercise helps to illustrate this:

Let’s say you have three competitors.

And you're all following the same path, the same playbook of staying lean, testing MVPs, iterating quickly, responding to feedback, and letting it take you where it takes you.

If you have three competitors, and you're all trying to get to the same destination, the odds are relatively favorable. You have a 25% chance, through sheer luck alone, of being the one to “win.”

But now, what if you have 20 competitors because AI has made it that much easier for copycats to, well, copycat?

Again, just by random luck alone, you only have a sub-5% chance of coming out victorious. That's a whole new ballgame.

And this is where systems thinking really shines. When everyone is mindlessly shipping and pingponging around without any sense of strategy, those adopting a systems-design approach will have a massive advantage.

The Takeaway

In a world where everyone can build fast, the advantage goes to those who can think systematically.

Our belief is that by slowing down in the short term to do the foundational work, you’ll be able to move significantly faster in the long term.

Next Up: The Foundational Five

All right. That wraps up the lesson.

We're now getting into the heart of the program. Next up, the Foundational Five.

We've been talking nonstop about system design. It is time to go deeper and start learning how to design yours.